William Bradford Grimes

WILLIAM BRADFORD GRIMES, rancher and farmer of Brown Township, Clark County, belongs to a noted family of cattlemen and drovers whose operations have extended during the past half century from Southern Texas to the limits of the northern range. The family name is prominent in Western Kansas and has been so for forty years or more. William Bradford Grimes is a brother of Bradford R. Grimes, under whose name many of the interesting details of the family's history and operations in the cattle industry are to be found on other pages of this publication.

William Bradford Grimes was born in Matagorda County, Texas, February 21, 1866, and he lived there until he was thirteen years old. Later he completed his education in the military school near Frankfort, Kentucky, and served a business apprenticeship of four years with the wholesale dry goods house of his father in Kansas City, the firm of Grimes, Woods & LaPorte. From Kansas City he came to Kansas and entered the cattle business with his brother Bradford R. Grimes and they were associated in Clark County and in the No Man's Land of Oklahoma until 1895. Mr. Grimes then engaged in the cattle business with headquarters in Clark County, and for several years represented the Sigel-Saunders Commission Company of Kansas City as manager of their ranches in this region of the southwest and bought and sold most of their livestock. In this way about that date he probably handled more cattle in this section of the country than any other resident.

Mr. Grimes present ranch consists of a section of land, 450 acres of which are under cultivation. This land comprises the east half of section 17 and the north half of section 16 in township 33, range 23, and is sixteen miles southeast of Minneola. In this same region his father, William Bradford Grimes, Sr., had some 15,000 steers on pasturage as early as 1873. This immense herd was then being trailed and grazed through the state on the way to the Grimes ranch in Dakota.

For a number of years William R. Grimes ran his cattle south of Ashland, and in 1905 bought the J. P. Reynolds pasture, including the old stage ranch and stage station between Dodge City and Camp Supply owned by that historic character of the southwest, Mr. Reynolds. Mr. Reynolds besides his work in freighting and transportation operated to some extent as a cattleman and rancher and about fifteen years after he left the country Mr. Grimes succeeded to his property. Mr. Grimes is a grower of stockers, and is now looked upon as one of the fixtures and prominent men in the citizenship of Clark County

Several years ago he started a movement in this county for securing loans from the Federal Land Bank and was secretary and treasurer of the local county board for a time. He is now township chairman of the Liberty Loan Committee and has served Brown Township as treasurer. In politics he is a democrat and first voted for Mr. Cleveland as president. He and his wife are members of the Presbyterian Church of Ashland, where they maintained their home for several years.

August 24, 1897, at Ashland, Mr. Grimes married Miss Blanche Lackey, who was born in Mercer County, Pennsylvania, December 24, 1878, daughter of F. Hazen Lackey. Her father was a native of Pennsylvania and came to Kansas from Meadville, that state. He was an early settler of Clark County, an extensive cattleman and originated the old Weldon ranch, which he operated for a number of years. He died at Ashland in 1898, at the age of forty-nine. Mr. Lackey married Rebecca Lindsay, who was born in Greenville, Pennsylvania, and is now living at Ashland. Mr. and Mrs. Lackey had three children: Mrs. Hermi Richardson, who died in Ashland; Mrs. Grimes; and Vance, living in Montana. The children of Mr. and Mrs. Grimes are: Frank Sigel, Lewis Lindsay, Blanche Louise, Helen, Robbins and Hazel.